Second and Third Thoughts
I’ve continued my exploration of argument mapping with Rationale, the browser-based argument mapping tool, using Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways to prove the existence of God as my subject matter. I reached the point where I have base versions of the argument maps for each way.
In this post, I will be sharing the maps and commenting further on Rationale as a software tool.
In my last post on Rationale, I illustrated using the software to map the first of Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways—logical proofs of God—that God is the prime, or unmoved, mover. In this post, I’ll makes some further remarks on working with Rationale to refine and polish a largely complete map resulting in an updated version of the Prime Mover argument and an argument map of the second way: God the the first cause.
Mainly so I can have a picture at the start of the post, I’m displaying a colour version of this wonderful, famous cartoon of Sidney Harris, Then A Miracle Occurs. It doesn’t quite get the Thomistic argument right as the miracle should be at step 1.
This is the third post in my series on argument mapping with Rationale. The previous posts are Argument Mapping with Rationale and More on Argument Mapping with Rationale.
To further practice argument mapping, I decided to map Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways. These purport to be logical proofs for the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas was a theologian in the 13th century CE. Apparently, Aquinas’ writings still influence the teaching of the Catholic Church today.
Aquinas argued that the existence of God could be proved in five ways:
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